Back in the day, my fellow disciples and I had a running joke: every time we were confronted with a moaning, self-involved twit, way-too-intimately familiar with the exquisite details of his (sometimes, but seldom, her) existential torture--say, a Bono, or a Michael Stipe or a Robert Smith or a Morrissey (or later, Perry Farrell or Trent Reznor)--we'd fantasize about stickin' 'em in a van with Black Flag and the Replacements for a cross-country road trip. That'd fix their monkey asses, unglue their eyes from the mirror and get their hands off their rods...and get 'em out in the world. What ended up happening to Henry Rollins and Paul Westerberg just goes to show how vigilant our congregation has to be against those creeping twins, narcissism and solipsism.

A little, hell, a little-plus reflection is necessary. Gotta give your guts and grey matter a good going-over every once in a while. But too much results in the unbroken circle of auto-fellatio. There's a world out there, buddy boy, ripe with possibility, and heights much loftier than those reached through listening to playbacks of your own vocal tracks, reading your own endless words, ogling your fabulous self-portrait, or just plain flogging your log. Sure there's danger and disappointment; they're just there to make the highs higher.